Many Deputies at the beginning of the discussion referred to the question of combined marketing. The same question arose on various stages of this Bill, and I think that I expressed myself fairly clearly on many occasions before, during the discussion on the Bill. I said that I was absolutely in favour of the principle of combined marketing, but that we had certain difficulties to get over and every Deputy here is aware of what these difficulties are. We all know, in the first instance, that many of our creamery managers are individualistic and they prefer to do their own business rather than be in a combine where they would not have the same power, as members of an organisation, as they have in doing their own selling. Secondly, there is a great prejudice against combined marketing, because people in the creamery business generally believe that the combined marketing which we had here a few years ago was a disaster. We have had Deputies here offering explanations of what they thought the failure was due to, and it is very difficult perhaps to find out the real cause of the failure. I think that one of the biggest causes was the fact that they were operating at a time when prices were rapidly falling and they did not really get a fair chance to demonstrate what combined marketing could do under normal circumstances. We have a chance I believe under this Bill of getting the confidence of the creamery committees and of the creamery managers and of getting over the prejudice which they had in the past against combined marketing. What is more, under this Bill, we shall have an Advisory Council set up which will have its mind altogether on marketing. The only job they will have is to see where they will get the best price, and they will naturally turn their minds towards combined marketing as an improvement on the present method. I do hope, as a result of this Bill, because we cannot do it under it, as I explained already, and as a result of bringing those certain forces together, we can do something to get back to combined marketing again. We have been asked also what was the Agricultural Organisation Society doing with regard to marketing? That is a question into which I would prefer not to go at the present moment as I am not prepared to enter into a discussion on it, but there will be an opportunity at a later stage, when the Estimates come up, for discussing that question.
Other questions were raised by Deputies who spoke. Deputy O'Hanlon raised the question of the Border creameries. Under the Bill we have power, when it becomes an Act, and under the tariff that was put on milk, we shall have power to issue licences to farmers on the other side of the Border to send milk to creameries in the Free State without paying the tariff on milk. We issued those licences for a quantity which would correspond to the quantity that was delivered last year by the same farmer. Deputy O'Hanlon says that we should have taken at least a three years' average or have allowed them to bring in as much as they chose. We certainly could not go the whole way and I think that if Deputy O'Hanlon examines it he will not advise it either. We are asking the consumer to contribute a certain amount to the producer in order to get a better price for his milk and we could not ask the consumers in the Free State to subsidise producers who choose to remain outside of the State. Where there are genuine cases however of a farmer on the other side of the Border supplying the creamery, who may be genuinely producing more milk this year than last year, and would, if this Bill had not come in, have produced more, it might be possible perhaps to vary the licences in certain cases, and if any such cases come through the creamery manager they will be considered.
Deputy McGilligan also contributed to the debate by putting to us some of his usual conundrums which have not got very much to do with this discussion. Last week we wanted to get the final reading of this Bill put through, and we were told by the leaders of the Opposition that they wanted it held back as they wanted to raise some important points. As a result of the holding back of this Bill we are holding up its working, and there is general uncertainty in the industry until the Bill goes through. I wonder now, after what has been contributed to to-day's discussion, what has justified the Opposition in their own eyes in holding up the Bill in order to contribute what they did contribute to-day? We were asked questions such as: Were we prepared, if we wanted to put our policy to the test, to hold this butter off the market and keep it until Great Britain would come and say that she was short of butter and would give us whatever price we wanted for it? We were asked another puerile and silly question: Why not get a market elsewhere for the butter since you are always claiming that we can get an alternative market? I think that Deputy McGilligan has at least sufficient intellect to think of these questions last week rather than hold up this Bill in order to say what he has said here to-day. On a previous stage we were compelled in a similar way to put back the Second Reading for a week because Deputy Cosgrave said it required very serious consideration as to whether his Party would move an amendment on the Second Reading or not. These delays have necessitated — or rather will necessitate — very many changes in dates, and so on, in this Bill when it goes before the other House, and then it will have to come back again for ratification, even if the Seanad does not wish to put in any amendments apart from the dates that will be suggested.
Deputy McGilligan also referred to a Deputy of this Party who made the complaint about the financial loss that he may have to sustain through this Bill. I believe that that Deputy of this Party will sustain very severe financial losses as a result of this Bill, but I may say for that Deputy that he has the interests of the country so much at heart that even though the Bill is going to hit him he will not put his own interests against those of the country.
Deputy Goulding, Deputy Corry, Deputy Anthony and Deputy O'Neill spoke on the question of farmers' butter. I think that a closer examination of this Bill and a closer study of its provisions will enable Deputies to see that we are not hitting the farmers' butter industry in this Bill in any way. I might mention for these Deputies' information that, as a matter of fact, we have been accused by many creameries throughout the country of putting a levy on them and not putting a levy on farmers' butter produced within the area, with the result that the people who are supplying the creameries up to this are now going back to making farmers' butter where they have no levy to pay. It is very difficult in a Bill like this to try to be just to everybody. I know it is true, as Deputy Corry said, that there are certain butter merchants who have been very hostile to this Bill. In buying butter, for instance, one week they told their buyers: "Best butter this week is 10d. per lb. Take off 2d. for levy and pay 8d." The people thought, of course, because of that, that this Bill was of no advantage to them and that really they were getting a lesser price than they would have got without the Bill. That very week the price the merchants got when they shipped their butter was less than 10d., but they gave the impression to the people from whom they were buying butter that they would give 10d. per lb. for it only for this Bill. Does anybody in this House or outside it believe that they ever gave more to the people from whom they buy butter than they got themselves? They are not philanthropists any more than any other body of traders in this country. They knew quite well that they could not give more than 8d. that particular week, but in order to make this Bill unpopular, because they felt it might hit them in other ways, I suppose, they tried to get the people up against it by telling their buyers to give 10d. per lb., deduct 2d. for levy and pay 8d.
What are the real facts as between the creameries and the home producers under the Bill? The creameries, as everybody knows, pay a levy of 2d. per lb. and get back a bounty of 4d. That is, they will get a profit of 2d. per lb. on butter produced. As against that there is one thing that must be taken into account, and that is that suppliers to creameries buying back their own butter buy it back having paid the levy on it, and so they have a net advantage of something less than 2d. Take farmers' butter. How is the price of that regulated? We know that the price of butter in the country is regulated more or less by the price of creamery butter. If we artificially put up the price of creamery butter here by 4d. per lb. we, by that very act, put up the price of farmers' butter also. The farmers who are producing butter will reply and say that they have a surplus and that that surplus must be exported through the factories and that therefore it is the export price that counts for them. That is true for a certain period of the year, but even for that particular quantity of butter, that must go through the factory in order to be exported, there is a profit of a halfpenny per lb. because the factories and the butter buyers pay a levy of 2d. and get back a bounty of 2½d., so that there is a definite gain of ½d. on all the butter exported and there is a gain of practically 4d. per lb. on butter sold inside the country.
The proportions are something like this. Of the total amount disposed of by the farmer, that is not consumed by his own household, about 70 per cent. is sold through the merchants and factories and about 30 per cent. is sold direct to the consumer. They have therefore about one halfpenny per lb. on 70 per cent. and 4d. per lb. on the 30 per cent., leaving them in practically the same position as the creameries. They, at any rate, get some advantage under the Bill. I might mention also that whereas suppliers to creameries have to buy back their butter from the creamery after having paid the levy on it, the farmers who produce their own butter have, of course, that butter at home and can consume it without paying any levy.
The complaint arises in this way, that farmers find it difficult to understand why with the Butter Bounty Bill and all the money that is being taken from the consumer, about which we hear so much, and all the other provisions that we brought in in respect of them, they are getting less for their butter than they got this time last year. The fact is that on the British market, where many countries are competing, the price is 2d. per lb. lower now than it was this time last year. As a matter of fact it is something like 2.2d. per lb. lower. There is another thing also that we must keep in mind and it is this: that if the price of creamery butter goes up here by 4d. per lb. and if the price of factory butter were to remain as it is, without getting this 4d. per lb. of a rise, it will induce certain people to buy factory butter for cooking and even induce certain people to buy factory butter for consumption in the ordinary way, and so a bigger proportion of factory butter, as a result of that, will be bought for home consumption and a lesser proportion will be exported. If that goes on to any extent it will be possible to raise the bounty and gradually we will bring the amount of the bounty on factory butter exported nearer to the bounty on creamery butter.
Arising out of the question of bounties, I want to refer to what Deputy O'Neill said. Deputy O'Neill said that I admitted that there was a weakness in the Bill, in not putting a levy on other milk products. I do not admit any such thing. My weakness was really to make Deputy O'Neill understand what I said at the time. I explained to the Deputy when the question arose, that if, as he feared, the export of cream were to increase, because no levy would be payable on cream, the export of butter would decrease, because naturally if we exported it as cream we have not got the cream to make butter and therefore the export of creamery butter goes down. I explained that as a result of that, whatever we might lose by the levy we would save by the bounty, so the event would remain the same practically in either case.
The Deputy also said that the object of this Bill was to maintain uneconomic creameries. I think that was referred to also by Deputy Corry who holds the view that the creameries cannot be saved. That is a very big question. We have at least made a very big attempt to save the creameries in the Bill and I believe myself they will be saved. I have expressed the view here on a previous stage of the Bill that in certain counties, which were not creamery counties, creameries should never have been started. But I think that the creamery counties of Munster will survive, and I think the creamery is perhaps the best industry for the farmers in these particular counties.
